7-27-2010 Northern WI NORML Meeting Minutes

7-27-2010 Northern WI NORML Meeting Minutes

Larger than usual turn out today.

target for referendum – county board supervisors. Each county could follow suit and do the same if they want to.

Multiple polling sources were used for the Ripon Commonwealth Press marijuana poll and the results were validated.

The Cannabis Agenda interview that Jay did last week went well, and they want to interview him again and do some other collaboration possibly.

Jay re-capped the function we attended with Ann Katz last tuesday for the rest of the group.

Upcoming Events – re-cap of Green Lake County Fair activity booth mixup – let’s take it as a sign and just go to the fair without a booth and we’ll probably cover more ground anyways.

We also plan to attend the Waushara county fair as well.

September parade schedule – we should pick one parade that we’re going to do for sure and start publicizing it now.

September 27th Goldend Days Harvest Fest Parade – mark your calendars (make sure that the NORML calendar is marked).

Harvest Fest Oct 1-3 in Madison, Wisconsin. Start thinking about making plans and also, we should make a flyer about it with Jay as a featured speaker, etc. We should also blog about it since they are not promoting it yet. Make sure to promote the Guest Speakers page in particular. There are some impressive speakers this year from around the country.

We briefly discussed “From the Land” Festival (www.fromthelandfestival.com) and a having booth there.

Jay discussed some of the talking points that he has tried to approach with local farmers and give us an update about what kind of response he has gotten. The problem with giving specific numbers is that it’s so complex, there are so many factors to consider that it’s difficult to give them exact data and hard numbers on how their specific situation would improve with farming hemp. Glenn suggested contacting the University of Madison for some assistance with research / numbers / etc.

We discussed imported hemp and the various uses that we use it for in the USA after we import it. Jay pointed out that if you go to wal-mart (or any store) and tell them that you would like to buy hemp products, they will listen. Encourage everyone you know to do so. Ask for books about hemp and cannabis at your local library as well.

6 billion dollars have been spent on fighting the war on drugs at this point.

if you could figure out how much more of a yield you can get from hemp / marijuana versus corn for ethanol, that would be a good number to have on hand for farmers (this was suggested by a gentleman whose name I don’t know). This again goes back to the problem of which numbers you start with – medical marijuana and industrial hemp are two different yields, the final crop value can vary wildly depending on what method of farming you used, what strain you used, and many other factors. Also, whether or not you own your land or rent it or whether you own your equipment or rent it, and many other things will affect the total cost of production and the total net profits.

This led into a discussion of how people shop – buy local, support local farmers, and help to sustain our local economies.

We have some support from politicians but it’s quiet support – they may give one answer in public, but in private, answer differently. This is because while they understand that there is more to the issue, they are afraid to discuss it openly because they fear it could harm their campaign to appear sympathetic. So, if you ask them one on one you may get a different answer.

We received a book to review called “Witch Grass”. Narin is reading it right now and after that, if anyone else wants to read it, just let Jay or Narin know.

Rich had the idea to purchase books about hemp / marijuana and donate them to the library.

The meeting adjourned at 7:30pm.